For those of you new to college recruiting, the NCAA put into place several years ago a number of rules designed to take the foot off the gas pedal of the ever-longer recruiting cycle.
In April 2018, the Division I Council adopted the Recruiting Shutdown rule, giving six weeks of respite to both coaches and prospective student-athletes in an otherwise frenzied calendar of round-the-clock recruiting. Other changes that were made in 2018 allowed student-athletes to begin taking official visits beginning in their junior year of high school –giving them an extra year to contemplate their options– and tightened up rules for unofficial visits. In April 2019, the NCAA changed the rules again in an attempt to curb early recruiting.
Many sports have their own calendars, but for swimming and diving, there are 3 “Recruiting Shutdown” periods and 1 “Dead Period” in the year that began on August 1, 2025 and runs through July 31, 2026.
Recruiting Periods Defined
Quiet Period – A quiet period is that period of time when it is permissible to make in-person recruiting contacts only on the member institution’s campus. No in-person, off-campus recruiting contacts or evaluations may be made during the quiet period.
Dead Period – A dead period is that period of time when it is not permissible to make in-person recruiting contacts or evaluations on or off the member institution’s campus or to permit official or unofficial visits by prospective student-athletes to the institution’s campus.
Recruiting Shutdown – A recruiting shutdown is a period of time when no form of recruiting (e.g., contacts, evaluations, official or unofficial visits, correspondence or making or receiving telephone calls) is permissible.
August 1, 2025 – July 31, 2026
| Third Monday in August through the following Sunday | Recruiting Shutdown | Aug. 18-24, 2025 |
| Monday through Thursday of the initial week for the fall signing date for athletics aid agreements | Dead Period | Nov. 10-13, 2025 |
| Winter break | Recruiting Shutdown | Dec. 18-Jan. 7, 2026 |
| 14 consecutive days beginning with the Sunday that is 38 days before the first day of the NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming Championship | Recruiting Shutdown | Feb. 8-21, 2026 |
Recruiting is permissible the rest of the year but NCAA D1 coaches must wait until June 15 after a student-athlete’s sophomore year of high school to initiate contact. August 1 before junior year is when student-athletes and their families can begin to take “official visits.”
NCAA Division II and Division III and NAIA coaches have much more relaxed rules about contacting student-athletes.
What do these dead periods accomplish?
They give the coaches and athletes a little break around the start of the school year.
Most of the coaches follow this period
do the same rules apply to recruiting international swimmers?
Yes it should. No college coaches should be in Romania this week.
Actually, college coaches may attend “Elite International Events” that occur outside of the permissible contact and evaluation periods.
So yes, they could be in Romania if they choose.